Vairagya

In the last week, I have turned in my pre-tenure portfolio and begun Second Series. Though I anticipated both, neither has had the effect that I thought it would. Correction: neither has had the intensity of the effect that I thought it would. I am grateful for this nothingness.

In an Ashtanga workshop with Jill Manning in November, we discussed the idea of "intensity without anxiety" in practice, in life. This concept, among many others that I gathered from this amazing weekend, has impacted me significantly in the last couple of months. For years — maybe even always — I have assumed that any accomplishment, any effort toward hard work, required anxiety. That is, if I was not having nightmares or heart palpitations or belly aches or low appetite, then I must have been doing it wrong. Or not putting in enough effort. I have been trying to let go of this notion; the anxiety, I have been learning, is not essential. It has for so long been part of my identity...and now I have been working to let it go.

My mentor has asked, why is the anxiety essential? What happens without it? And I have talked about how I would not know what to replace it WITH. But this worry can be soothed at the heart of yogic philosophy. The 15th Sutra in Book One (2007) discusses vairagya, or non-attachment, as "colorless." Satchitananda assures us that it "should not be misunderstood to be indifference" (23). Rather, he explains, when we detach from selfish "desire" we are liberated and can direct our energies toward others. "Because [in vairagya] you don't have anything, you have your Self always. [...] By renouncing worldly things, you possess the most important sacred property: your peace" (25). We can think about the "things" like our material possessions, but we can also consider the high of success or accomplishment or good marks to be "worldly things." We can let go of these, too. And we can find peace in that letting go.

Don't get me wrong, I still feel pride, accomplishment, relief, success, strength, confidence. I still feel worry that the review will be negative, that my strength will not support these Second Series poses, that I will disappoint my colleagues or my dear teacher. These emotions are all worldly things that I hold on to. BUT...and this is an important "but," I feel viscerally that these feelings have not peaked in the way in which they used to. It could be that this past week my attention have been on my child and on my partner, both of whom have been so very sick. It could be that I have been more focused on trying to get good sleep. And it could be that I was mindfully trying NOT to worry. "Let your brain sink into your heart," says Rodney Yee (Power Yoga, DVD, 2003). I have been trying to let the mind fall. And it is falling.

What do I replace it — the worry, the peaks of celebration — with? Nothing. Non-attachment does not leave a hole. It closes a hole, an emptiness, for these peaks of emotion are accompanied by valleys. We accomplishment the accomplishment, we feel exhilarated, then what? There is a low. But the low does not have to be so low if we are willing to accept that the high does not have to be so high. The gift that comes to the person who lets go is joy, says Satchitananda (26). For me, there is joy in not having to worry. I did not have to worry all along; I could have let go of it long ago (perhaps, if someone had given me "permission"). Yoga invites us to give ourselves permission.

Man...what a trip. I think about how much more sleep I could have gotten, even in the first grade, if I had only know that I could just close my eyes and let go of the present day and the tomorrow.

Works Cited

Yee, Rodney. Power Yoga: Total Body Workout. DVD. Gaiam, 2003.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. 12th edition. Trans. Sri Swami Satchatananda. Yogaville, VA: Integral Yoga Publications, 2007.